


World Neverending

by trascendenza



Category: As the World Turns
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-03
Updated: 2007-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 13:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Noah is a kid who doesn't have a lot of heroes.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	World Neverending

**Author's Note:**

> Reference: 4x125, 13x100, 2x125, 1x250, 1x200.

Noah is a kid who doesn't have a lot of heroes. Sure, there's his dad, Spider-Man, Bogart, some other fictional heroes, and they're all great, but… most of them don't even exist.

And the one that does is always just out of his reach.

Noah isn't sure if it's okay to be scared of a hero—sometimes, at dinner, when his dad asks him questions, he feels scared. Scared that something bad will happen if he talks too much. So he stays quiet, and hopes his dad will never find what he's looking for.

Noah doesn't want to be scared of him. But he thinks if he isn't scared of his dad, he'll hate him, and he knows that it's not okay to hate heroes.

*

Noah wants more friends. It's the worst when they move to a big base, because then there are kids who have been there practically forever—a year, two years—and they never like new kids. Not even when he tries really hard.

Hamilton Base is really a big one. Noah's spent all summer alone, riding his bike to and from the theater in town when his dad is out of the house.

So when Greg, one of the other new kids, starts hanging out with him one day when they're both riding to see _The Art of War_, he latches on to him and doesn't let go, even though Greg makes him feel a little funny.

Feeling funny's got to be better than feeling scared.

*

Summer comes and goes; fall settles in, and they're still at Hamilton.

He goes over to Greg's every day after school and begs Mrs. Wendell not to tell his dad. She's a thin woman with pinched hands; she wrings them every time Noah runs out the door when he spots his father's car pulling off the freeway.

She tells him eleven years old is too young to have secrets. He doesn't listen to her.

One afternoon, he and Greg fall asleep on the floor after eating a whole pack of Snickers Bars; they wake up with their noses pressed together.

Noah runs, even though his dad isn't due home for another hour. Mrs. Wendell is wrong: Noah's never been too young to keep a secret.

*

His dad comes home early one day and finds them playing tackle football in Greg's front yard. Noah's whole body burns red. Greg talks back to his dad and on the spot, he's forbidden from the Wendell household.

A girl with top tights and no lines in her jeans becomes his babysitter. He terrorizes her instead of his father.

Saving up five allowances, he buys a phone and gives Greg the number at school. His palms sweat for the rest of the day.

He plugs it into his dad's fax line after lights-out, wraps the ringing part in cotton and when Greg calls fifteen minutes later, they have to just listen to each other breathe for a few minutes before they can even say anything.

*

As a last act of defiance, he sees Greg one more time before they leave Hamilton; they buy ice cream from the truck and eat in silence, sitting on the sidewalk side by side, their sneakered feet spread in the street.

"He really sucks," Greg says, and Noah doesn't have to ask who he's talking about.

"He's my dad." It's not a defense, just a fact.

"Yeah."

"Will you be here much longer?" They're shipping out tomorrow.

"My mom says awhile." Greg shrugs. "Won't be good without you, though."

Noah eats his ice cream, and wishes he could believe Greg.

*

Time and distance fade their resolve to stay in touch; letters fall into cracks and addresses get lost in the shuffle of transfers and relocations. He doesn't forget Greg, but he doesn't mind when the bottomed-out feeling in his stomach goes away.

Before he knows it, Noah's in high school and suddenly everything seems more serious, more exhilarating. Like anything could happen. By this time, Noah's only heroes are imaginary, insubstantial and tantalizing as his memories of his mother.

Until the day of his fourteenth birthday when Thomas Branford and his family move in next door, and Noah's world ends.

*

Tom is everything.

In the literal sense, he's just the guy who lives next door, but in reality, to Noah, he's so much more.

The captain of the football team, the class president with a 4.0 GPA—and yet when Noah passes him one morning on his walk to the bus, Tom speaks to him. Tom smiles like it's the most natural thing in the world for a senior introduce himself to a freshman. He holds out his hand with a confidence that Noah is afraid to touch.

He does, anyway, and Tom is everything that changes in his life.

*

"Yeah, my semesters abroad are going to be _amazing_." Tom tosses the dart with practiced ease.

"Northwestern is so lucky to have you, man."

Tom holds out a dart; Noah takes it with care.

"Any idea where you want to go?"

"I—" The dart veers wildly and just barely catches the side of the board. "I don't know," Noah lies, wondering if Tom can see through his skin, see all the truth written just under the surface of him.

"You should think about Northwestern."

Tom hits the bull's eyes.

Noah doesn't lie again; Tom pries him open without effort.

*

"I told you to be home at seven p.m. sharp." The Colonel's voice that cuts the air.

"Yes, sir." Noah waits for it.

"Don't you have anything better to do with your time than bother Thomas? I'm sure a boy like him has a lot of responsibilities to keep up with. As do you."

"Yes, sir."

"That Sally girl called again." A hopeful smile that cuts Noah to the quick. "Will you be making your move soon, son?" His dad asks.

"Yes," Noah says, because he knows that's what will make the Colonel happy and his dad let him go upstairs.

*

"This movie is boring." Sally pops her gum and exhales her whole body into the cushions, taking up more of the couch. Noah shrinks back.

"But this is a _classic_—just look at the lighting on this scene. Isn't that incredible? They did that with—"

Sally's immense sigh cuts him off. "Look, you're friends with Tom, right? Do you, like, think you could introduce us?"

She wrinkles her nose at him when he laughs, and he doesn't care, because his life is just _too_ fucking funny in a way that he has to laugh about or he'll crack open.

*

Tom hands it over the fence. It's wrapped in brown paper; its weight drops out the bottom of Noah's stomach.

"For me?" He asks, suspended between wanting the answer and wanting to run away.

"No, for the other Noah Mayer whose birthday it is today." Tom punches him on the shoulder. The stars are out; Noah blames the night breeze for the chills that rise on his skin.

A camera, sleek, fine, strong and _perfect_. (Just like Tom.)

"Shit, man. This is amazing. I—"

"Happy sixteen, Noah."

Noah grins, breathless. "The best ever."

(Except that the camera is _his._)

*

"Screw the fucking _Colonel_," Tom slurs, waving his beer to punctuate his sentence. "What the fuck does he know about _anything_?"

Noah's nostrils flare and he gulps down half his beer.

"He said I could use it for work, at least."

"That camera wasn't for _work,_ Noah. It was for _you._" Beer makes the skin on Tom's chin shine.

But after another two beers, Tom is laughing again. "Whatever. When I'm in London, you're going to come over and film all the crazy shit I do. All good politicians need skeletons if their closets."

Noah sloshes. "I'll be your skeleton."

*

"Jesus, dude." Tom looks him up and down. "You grew up."

"Well, you know. You don't come see me for a summer, and everything's different."

"I wanted to, but I had to make up those units—"

"No sweat, man." Noah opens the door wider; Tom fills up the frame. Noah grins. "I'll be there soon."

Tom's face opens, sunlight through clouds. "I can't wait." He quiets. "So you got everything sorted with your dad?"

"Yeah. And I've got an internship starting next week—same day you're leaving for London."

"Talk about good timing."

Noah smiles. His schedule always matches Tom's.

*

Maddie is easy to talk to in a way that confounds him; she sees all the good parts he puts forward and doesn't look for any of the bad that they both know is underneath. She doesn't make his stomach bottom out or change his world, but keeps the parameters set, lined up for inspection. She's stability and Noah is adrift.

When she laughs, Noah hears a person he thought he wasn't capable of being. He starts to see Tom's life stretched out in front of him like a film.

She makes him believe that he can have that, too.

*

_"I'm gay."_

Noah hears the words, hears them and takes meaning from them, but comprehension stays at the far edges of his mind, his thought processes padded in cotton.

He tells Luke _you never said anything_, but what he really means is _how can you know?_ It's not as if he's never met someone… like this, before. It's not that he's never heard the word.

It's just the first time he's heard it and wanted to understand what it means—to Luke, to Luke's friends, his family, his life.

But mostly, Noah wants to know what it means to _him_.

*

"…no, I like you, Noah."

"Then why do you keep pushing me away?"

Luke is grimace-smiling now; it's not his convenient lie smile.

"Because… I _like_ you, Noah."

This is so much easier to understand than the concept of gay, so much more real and visceral and the blood's roaring in his ears before he's taken in a full breath. The whole world shifts in an instant.

This time, it isn't just his stomach that bottoms out; it's the floor, the room, everything he thought he knew. Noah hangs suspended in a new world, lost, only Luke as his guide.

*

He didn't lie to Tom, but he's starting to see that the truth isn't the same as telling the truth. It's true that the A.C. in his place sucks, for instance. It's not true that he minds the heat.

But he minds the thought of Luke being alone.

And he's not—he isn't—he can't do anything. Except be Luke's friend.

He doesn't analyze why, when he thinks this, he hears Tom laughing at him, and feels beer-warmed breath hot on his ear. _Noah, you're better than this._

He's not. Not even a hero could convince him of that.

*

_"Do you have an acceptance speech ready yet?"_

"No, I'll have you write it, after you write our first award-winning screenplay."

(I need you to know I'm not going anywhere.)

*

Skin, skin to skin, Luke's skin, Noah's skin—this is chaos, this is the world spinning on a different axis, hammering his heart out of his chest and constricting his throat, constricting it down on all the denials that he's supposed to have on hand. Luke is a still shot beneath him, a moment captured forever on the reel of Noah's mind, a split screen with things Noah isn't ready to see, levels of truth he isn't ready to face.

Maddie returns him to his correct axial tilt, buys ice cream with him and he desperately tries to make her laugh, and kisses her over and over again, because he can't hear the promises anymore, can't taste what he thought the two of them were.

*

_"What's wrong?"_

"Nothing."

(The worst part is that it's true.)

*

It isn't like darkness—it's light, pure and so bright that it hurts his eyes, burns away the filters he's had over his lenses since the first time he kissed a girl and made sure to do it on the porch where the Colonel would see. It isn't deviance or aberration or anything it _should_ be—it's sunshine and fire under his skin, it's air in his lungs and blood pounding in his wrists.

For one perfect moment outside of time, Noah's somebody he doesn't recognize, someone that Luke sees and touches and holds close. Like Noah could be worth this.

But the light, like all brilliance, extinguishes.

Noah closes the lid on it, knowing that if he doesn't now, he'll never be able to.

*

_"Do you?"_

"Yeah. In a way, I do."

(In the only way I'm allowed to.)

*

His dad puts an arm around his shoulders; they watch Maddie leave.

"You're an extremely lucky man, Noah. You've got yourself a real catch, there."

Noah turns his head with a prevailing sense of vertigo, vision obscured like he's looking through a pane of glass; he sees his father from a far distance.

There was a time when those words—when that _pride_—meant the world to him. A time when he retreated into the dark to escape the lack of them, when he believed that he _wasn't_ any better than this.

A time when he was scared.

But it's hard to fear a hero fallen, harder still to fear a man who's just that: a man, no greater and no less.

"You're right, sir," he says, slipping out from under his father's arm, back ram-rod straight. "I am very lucky to have a _friend_ as good as Maddie. But I'm also very lucky to have Lu—"

"Noah!" The Colonel's eyes tighten with immediate comprehension and rejection; he holds up a hand, taking a step back from Noah as if he's warding off a blow. "Stop right there. You don't know what you're saying, son—"

"I know exactly what I'm saying, dad." He lets the sweet chaos come through in his pained smile. "I'm saying goodbye."

When he turns to leave, neither his dad nor the Colonel reaches to stop him.

*

_"Oh, yeah. I'm the son he always wanted."_

(But maybe he's never going to be the father I deserve.)

*

"Are you okay?" Luke reaches out, unsure, tentative. "I just… I can't believe you really did it."

"I'm not sure I believe it yet, either. I don't know what got into me." He laughs, and breathes, maybe for the first time. He brings a hand up, palm hovering just beside Luke's cheek, eyes darkening as he looks down into Luke's eyes. "Maybe you got into me."

Luke's eyes close, his throat convulses, briefly, and then he falls into place, the hot skin of his cheek burning against Noah's palm. They fit, fit like it was just that easy all along.

"I—I don't want to force you into anything—talk you into anything you don't want, believe me, that's the last thing I want to do—but I won't lie to you, either." Luke opens his eyes, hazel touched with sun, and wraps his hand around Luke's wrist, thumb on top of Noah's pulse. "Because I want this, Noah. I want you."

And though theirs is no storybook romance, neither quite the prince nor the hero, they kiss, and live the best kind of happily ever after that they know how: in a world never-ending, where chaos can reign free.


End file.
